


Honeymoon in Cicero

by ZoePlacid



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Warnings for homophobic and misogynistic language, post 3x11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:42:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoePlacid/pseuds/ZoePlacid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey and Svetlana's wedding reception and wedding night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honeymoon in Cicero

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t quite know what this is. It’s weird and it’s basically a fill-in-the-blanks fragment. Takes place at Mickey and Svetlana’s wedding reception and later that same night. 
> 
> I’ve always been fascinated/mystified by Mick & Svet’s relationship because they often seem to hate each other, but at other times they’re almost a team. Plus, there’s the incredibly upsetting way their “marriage” began. This is just me wondering what the hell their wedding night was like.

The reception seems to last an eternity. It’s taking so long that Mickey thinks maybe he actually died that day when his dad tried to kill the fag inside of him and now he’s finally reached hell. Cause hell was definitely this fucking wedding. This fucking reception.

He sits at a folding table in the corner. It’s definitely not the “bride and groom” table, that’s at the head of the room where Svetlana is now slumped, looking trashed and leaning on a shoulder of one of her Russian whore bridesmaids (the tall one who’s built like a stevedore). He watches her and tries to be grateful that she’s the prettiest whore here. No, that doesn’t go far enough, she’s actually the prettiest woman at this whole goddamn wedding. He tries to be grateful that his father had arranged a pretty girl to be sent to him that day, but for some reason it doesn’t cheer him up. At all.

He’s been drinking for hours. Drinking since the reception began but somehow he can’t get drunk. He still feels frighteningly sober after four hours of Jack and Cokes--and eventually just straight Jameson out of a bottle he grabbed from the open bar his dad paid for. 

“I’m doing this wedding fucking right, Mick. You’re the first son of mine to get hitched and you’re getting a fucking open bar and a fucking catered lunch,” Terry had said three weeks ago as he slapped Mickey on the back like everything was fine again. 

Mickey now watches his dad, too. He’s drunker than anyone else and slow dancing with a tiny Russian woman who Mickey doesn’t think is a prostitute but he doesn’t really know for sure and he can’t be bothered to give a fuck. His dad looks happy.

There’ve been times these past months, ever since that fucking day that Mickey doesn’t think about, when he seriously contemplated sneaking into his dad’s room at night and killing him while he slept. It wouldn’t be that hard. He could do it with a pillow or something--or find a drug that mimics a heart attack. Wait until he passed out from drinking a fucking flotilla of beer, inject him with a needle, and hightail it the fuck outta there. Who would even care enough to do an autopsy on Terry Milkovich? And who the fuck, except for Ian and Svetlana, would even know that Mickey had a reason to off the bastard? Ian wouldn’t say anything and Svetlana was an undocumented Russian whore scared shitless of the police. Mickey doesn’t think it would be risky at all from a prison point of view. He plans it out night after night as he’s lying in bed unable to sleep, but in the end he knows it’s only empty wish-fulfillment. He won’t do it--will never do it. Because no matter how well he planned it, he knows deep in his gut that it’d go wrong somehow. His father would figure out his plan. He’d kill Mickey instead. The guy was fucking psychic like that. No one ever got the best of Terry Milkovich and many had tried. 

And there’s another reason, too. Mickey still fucking loves him a little. He remembers his dad teaching him how to make a fist. How to fire a gun. He remembers all the times his dad was proud of him for beating some idiot up. For sealing a deal. Cause before Mickey got caught with Ian’s dick in his ass, he’d been his dad’s favorite. Terry would often whack Mickey’s brother Colin upside his head when Colin was in a weed-stupor and yell, “Get your head outta your ass. Why can’t you be more like your fucking brother and keep your eyes peeled on all the motherfuckers who might try to screw this family over?”

There’s a small, pathetic part of Mickey that’s relieved this stupid fucking wedding has made everything the same between him and his dad. Sure, it’s a fucking Mack truck of pain to pay--but at least it’s getting Mickey something. It’s getting him the status quo back. He has to remind himself of this whenever his brain slips up and he thinks about Ian. Thinks of kissing him and getting fucked by him today in the Veteran’s Hall basement. Remembers Ian drunk and yelling as Mickey and Svetlana were getting their wedding pictures taken (Terry knew a photographer who usually did porno shots). Mickey hadn’t even known that Ian was still here, until he heard a scuffle and his head turned to see Ian throwing his drink and yelling something about “fucking commies.” So much had happened already today that Mickey didn’t even have the wherewithal to be scared of whatever it was that Ian might blurt out. Mickey only thought tiredly, “Fuck. He looks fucking wrecked.” And he wanted to tell him that everything would be okay--that it could be just the same as before, only now he’d be lying to one more random person. Who happened to be his wife. Who was pregnant with his kid. Fuck fuck fuck.

Anyway Lip dragged Ian outta there and Mickey, for once, was thankful that Ian had a big brother, even if the guy was usually a shit.

So after the photos were taken, Mickey found corners to hide in and bottles to fall into. At first everyone wanted to congratulate him but by now they were all too drunk themselves to give a fuck about where he’s at. He finishes off the last of his whiskey and stands up to return to the bar when Svetlana suddenly appears before him. 

“You want to dance with me?” she slurs, “We haven’t had bride and groom dance.” 

He can’t figure her out. She’s got to know this is all a sham. She was fucking there (although high on about four different things he learned later). They had sex exactly once, and only because his father was going to kill him and she was ordered to by her fucking pimp. They’ve barely spoken since then. But every time he sees her she’s always fucking smiling at him in this moony way and today as the photographer was snapping their picture, she kept draping herself over him and whispering in his fucking ear. Shit like, “You make me so happy,” and “I will be best wife to you,” and “You have strong arms, that’s nice. Very manly.” He has no fucking idea if she is literally crazy or just Russian. Like maybe this is all normal where she comes from. Maybe shotgun sex to turn guys straight is considered fucking romantic in Siberia or wherever the fuck. Maybe this entire scenario is her fucking reenactment of _Pretty Woman_ and he’s her cut-rate version of Richard Gere. Isn’t Richard Gere supposed to be a queer in real life? So maybe this all makes sense to Svetlana and Mickey is almost glad it makes sense to one person at least, because it sure as shit doesn’t make sense to him.

“I don’t dance,” he tells her.

“It’s for wedding! It’s tradition!”

“Who’s fucking tradition?”

“American tradition. Everyone says.”

He looks around. Half the guests have left already. The other half are sitting around drunk or dancing (more like holding on to someone and shuffling their feet). No one fucking cares about him and Svetlana and he can stand to dance with her one time, he supposes. The DJ is just playing some crappy whiney love song he doesn’t recognize anyway. Maybe his dad will see and he’ll love their imitation of the happy couple.

“Fine. Whatever,” and Svetlana beams like he just gave her a diamond necklace and told her loved her or some shit. 

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” she asks.

“Smile like that.” Because she reminds him of someone else who always used to smile at Mickey like he’d hung the moon for no goddamn reason. He doesn’t need to be reminded of that shit right now.

Svetlana doesn’t stop smiling, however, and grabs his hand and leads him to the dance floor. As she sets her hands on his shoulder and places his arms around her waist, the current song stops and another starts up. It’s another slow one, but this one Mickey actually recognizes because it’s fucking Cheap Trick. There was always Cheap Trick playing at Milkovich parties when he grew up. His parents and his aunts and uncles fucking loved them for some reason and his Aunt Ginny even claimed she once blew the band’s drummer after a 1994 concert at the World Music Theater.

_Another night slowly closes in and I feel so lonely_

Mickey has hated this song his entire life (way, way too sappy and the singer sounds like he’s about to have a fucking mental collapse) but as Svetlana pulls him closer with her fucking grabby hands, and nestles her head on his shoulder he listens to the words like he’s hearing them for the first time.

_I’m going crazy, I’m losing sleep_  
I’m in too far, I’m in way too deep  
Over you  
I can’t believe you’re gone 

_You were the first, you’ll be the last_  
Wherever you go, I’ll be with you  
Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you 

He doesn’t even make it through the first chorus before he’s trying to remove himself from her fucking arms that feel like fucking burning tentacles. 

“What’s wrong? Song hasn’t finished?!”

He throws around excuses like crazy, “I drank too much. I don’t feel good. I’ve got to go throw up. And we fucking danced, all right?”

She’s hurt and angry as he finally manages to pry her hands off and races to the bathroom where he can still hear that fucking song as it echoes against the white tiles. He stands in a stall staring at the fucking toilet. He does feel like throwing up but it’s not from liquor.

He can’t believe it’s come to this. Freaking the fuck out over shitty love ballads. This isn’t even a good song! He leans against the stall walls, crosses his arms, closes his eyes, and finally resigns himself to his fate--and so he thinks of Ian. 

Ian’s stupid red hair. And his lame faded freckles. That laugh Mickey could surprise out of him sometimes, and it always surprised Mickey, too, because he didn’t think he even said anything that funny. The way Ian would pull at his hair absently as he sat at the counter in the Kash and Grab pouring over some textbook for hours. And Mickey’d be reading a magazine but he’d also sneak glances at Ian every so often. And eventually Ian would lift his head out of the book and say something random like, “We treated the Chinese immigrants who built the railroads like shit.”

And Mickey’d snort and say, “What d’you expect? This fucking country is shitty to everyone.”

And Ian would return to reading and absent-mindedly pulling at his hair until Mickey had enough dicking around and would ask, “You wanna go in the back and fuck?” Because, sure, he wanted to fuck Ian, but it was also the only guaranteed way he had of touching Ian and maybe putting his fingers in Ian’s stupid fucking red hair without seeming faggy about it. And if there was a contradiction in wanting to get fucked by a guy in order to not seem like a fag, well, Mickey didn’t really care enough to parse it out.

So Mickey remembers what it was like to look at Ian, talk to Ian, laugh with Ian, and get fucked by Ian. And he wonders if he’ll ever be with Ian again. Or if today was the last time. All while the Cheap Trick lead singer croons and whines. Then the song finally ends and luckily the next one is Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” which is so bad that it makes Mickey think of absolutely nothing except how much he hates this fucking song. He feels a little better realizing he still has some limits.

*****

For the wedding night his uncles pooled money together and rented Mickey and Svetlana a room in a dingy motel in the fabulous confines of Cicero, Illinois. His uncle Ronnie lent Mickey his truck, too. Around 11 PM Mickey and Svetlana pile into it while the guests who are still here and still sober enough to move, stand outside and pelt the vehicle with rice. Svetlana smiles and waves to all of them.

“Thank you! Thank you! I love you! Thank you!” she shouts through the window to her bridesmaids as rice keeps hitting the car and making it sound like they’re in the midst of a very tiny and hard rain storm. Mickey starts the truck and says harshly, “They can’t fucking hear you so shut the fuck up.” Svetlana glares at him but doesn’t reply. He throws the car into gear and tears down the street.

The drive only takes about 15 minutes but it’s a long fucking fifteen minutes. They say nothing to each other and in the silence Mickey starts panicking. He can feel his heart beating--racing--in his fucking chest and that’s not fucking normal. This is the rest of his life. Being alone with this fucking woman. Forever. Until she has his _fucking kid_ and then it’ll be the three of them. He’s never believed in panic attacks before--they always sounded like some pussy excuse--but he feels like he’s on the edge of one right now. He can’t seem to remember how to breathe.

He pulls the car over (or swerves it) to the side of the road. He leans on the steering wheel and tries to calm down.

“What are you doing?” Svetlana asks.

He couldn’t even give her an answer if he wanted to.

“Still sick from the drink?” she offers almost sympathetically, “How much did you have? You are sort of a pussy, you know? In Russia no one ever gets sick from drink.”

“Why don’t you fucking go back there, then?”

She mutters something in Russian and he concentrates on his breaths. In and out. Inhale, exhale. It’s not so hard. He’s feeling better until he feels a hand snake around him and rest lightly on his back, patting him gently.

“Take your goddamn fucking hand off me.” She removes it and it takes Mickey a few more seconds to feel well enough to drive, but eventually he puts the car back into gear and they take off again.

The hotel is called the Cicero Regency. It has three floors and ugly burnt-orange carpeting. Mickey checks them in and the manager says, “Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Milkovich!” while Svetlana beams. They walk to their room on the second floor. It faces the parking lot. There are cigarette burns on the carpet and there’s a weird pink stain on one of the walls. Svetlana loves it.

“It’s beautiful!” she shouts as she runs around the room, “It has huge bathroom! And TV has cable!”

“We have fucking cable at home. Better channels, too.”

She’s not listening, but opening the closet and exclaiming over the travel ironing board inside, “We can iron our clothes tomorrow!”

“I’ll look forward to that,” he says as he collapses onto the bed. There’s just one queen-sized bed in the room. He doesn’t know what else he was expecting, but he somehow forgot they’d be sharing a bed tonight. And every night from now on, he supposes.

She smiles seductively at him, “I go change into something comfortable,” and she drags her small overnight bag into the bathroom with her.

Mickey rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. He is completely unable to contemplate sex with her--if she even tries to kiss him he will throw her out the fucking window. He thought he could do this. He’s had sex with lots of women before--more times with women than with guys, actually--he didn’t think this would be that difficult. But now he realizes he can’t have sex with Svetlana. Not again. He just can’t.

When she comes out of the bathroom in a short black lace thing, he sits, still dressed in his rumpled tux, on top of the covers with the TV remote in his hand. He’s clicking through all the channels, refusing to look at her. She sits gingerly on the other side of the bed, giving him longing looks every now and then. Eventually she starts putting on a show by licking her fingers and rubbing the silk around her nipples until they form hard peaks under her nightie. She starts makes little mewling noises that turn into full-fledged moans. He ignores her and watches TV.

After some more moaning she starts saying shit like, “Oh, I am so hot. I am so wet. I need your dick in me right now, baby.” He does look at her then because is she fucking serious? Or is this more proof of her insanity?

When she starts moving her hand over her cooze and is practically yelping he finally snaps, “Svetlana, can you fucking give it a rest please?”

He thinks maybe she’ll be hurt but after a moment she simply asks, “So you don’t want to fuck?”

“No.”

“At all?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“How about hand job?”

“No! Please just shut up.”

He continues cycling through the channels. He’s terrified of what she might say next, or worse than that, that she might try to touch him. But when he pauses on the Food Network she stops pretending to be aroused and yells, “Wait! What is that?”

“Fucking show about food.”

“I want to watch it.” Mickey shrugs and this is how they end up spending their wedding night, watching a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives marathon because Svetlana is fascinated by the different American cities. 

“So, Tuc-son,” she enunciates heavily at one point, “You’ve been there?”

“No.”

“It looks nice. Very warm.”

And later:

“What is a Reuben?’

“It’s that fucking thing right there with the sour kraut. They’ll show you how it’s made in a second.”

Staring at Guy Fieri’s stupid fucking hair and answering all of her stupid fucking questions about America, and various American sandwiches, strangely keeps him from losing it again. 

Eventually she goes back to the bathroom and removes all her makeup. When she returns she looks different. Younger and softer--like all her hard lines have been erased. She climbs under the covers and they watch Guy Fieri salivate over a lobster roll.

“You ever have one of those?” she asks.

“Nah. I’ve never been out East,” he answers.

“I had lobster once,” she says, “This big shot stock broker wanted to do it with five girls. Five! Can you imagine? Very stupid man, so greedy--he had eyes much bigger than his penis. So he paid for a bunch of us and took us to fancy hotel downtown--”

“Bet it was nicer than this fucking shithole,” Mickey interrupts.

“Eh. So-so. I couldn’t enjoy it because he’s always demanding me to make out with Tatiana all the time. ‘Put your tongue down her throat’ ‘Now pet her pussy.’ Very bossy. Well, he orders us big lobster dinner. Five lobsters and he says he wants to watch us eat all the food. And I think, okay, at least I get to taste lobster? But when lobster comes he tells Tatiana and Olesya, ‘No, you two girls don’t get to eat. You displeased me.’ It’s some sadistic power bullshit! He doesn’t even eat their lobsters--he throws them away! Wasteful. And they have to watch while we eat and I know they’ve also never had lobster, and I feel like bashing his skull in, and so I enjoy nothing. Could not taste what I was eating.”

“Sounds like a real fucko.”

“Yes. He was a real fucko.” 

She must have a lot of memories like this. Much worse ones, too, probably. Mickey wants to ask her how she can bear having so many shitty memories of being forced to do things she didn’t want to do. Because he has one memory like that and it’s all he tries not to think about. He doesn’t ask, though, and she’s quiet for a moment until she says, “We don’t have to fuck--if you don’t want to. It’s okay. I could use break.”

She was sitting up before, leaning against the pillows, but now she’s slowly starting to slide down into a sleeping position. It’s past 3 AM. On the TV Guy Fieri is in Los Angeles stuffing his face with something called a pupusa. Svetlana’s eyes begin to close and Mickey turns the volume down on the TV to a low murmur. She says, yawning, “You can leave sound on, I sleep through anything.” But he keeps it low. He’s grateful to her, in a weird way, for tonight. She kept him distracted from his thoughts (mostly) and she left him alone when he asked her to. 

He falls asleep on top of the covers, in his clothes, with the TV on. In the morning when they both wake up, it’s playing a show about decorating cupcakes that Svetlana is mesmerized by and he lets her watch it without complaining too much even though it’s fucking stupid.

**Author's Note:**

> Song is Cheap Trick’s “The Flame”


End file.
